Fitz John Porter (31 August 1822 – 21 May 1901) was a Union Army Major-General during the American Civil War who was famously court-martialled after the Second Battle of Bull Run in 1862.
Biography[]
Fitz John Porter was born in Portsmouth, New Hampshire in 1822, the cousin of David Dixon Porter, William D. Porter, and David Farragut. He graduated from West Point in 1845 and served in the US Army as an artillery lieutenant during the Mexican-American War, being brevetted a Major after being wounded at the Battle of Chapultepec. From 1849 to 1853, he worked as an artillery instructor at West Point, and he fought in the Utah War and helped with the evacuation of federal troops from their forts in Texas after it seceded to join the Confederacy. When the Army of the Potomac was formed under George B. McClellan at the start of the American Civil War, Porter was promoted to Brigadier-General and led a division during the 1862 Peninsula Campaign. During the Seven Days Battles, he distinguished himself as a defensive general, and he was promoted to Major-General after again distinguishing himself at the Battle of Malvern Hill. He was later given corps command in the Army of Virginia under John Pope, and he criticized Pope's plans during his invasion of northern Virginia in August 1862. During the Second Battle of Bull Run, Porter led the attack on the Confederate army, but he exposed his (and therefore the entire army's) flank to Stonewall Jackson, leading to a decisive Confederate counterattack which destroyed the Union army. On 5 September 1862, Porter was removed of command, court-martialled on 25 November 1862, found guilty of insubordination on 10 January 1863, and booted from the Army on 21 January 1863. His Confederate rival Edward Porter Alexander respected Porter greatly, and said that the Confederate victory at Bull Run was even greater because the Union dismissed Porter. After the war, he declined a command in the Egyptian Army and spent the rest of his life fighting against his court-martial, finally being exonerated in 1878 when John Schofield pointed out that Porter's reluctance to attack James Longstreet's men at Bull Run had probably saved the Union army from a greater defeat. He went on to serve as an NYPD commissioner during the 1880s, and he died in Morristown, New Jersey in 1901 at the age of 78.
Gallery[]
